What Could the Cadets Have Counted On When They Withdrew from the Cabinet?[1]

Written:Written on July 3 (16), 1917Published:Published inProletarskoye DyeloNo. 2, July 28 (15), 1917.

      Published according to the manuscript.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1977,

      Moscow,Volume 25,

      pages153-154.Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.  

      2002You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Thequestion arises quite naturally. To correctly meet events
      with definite tactics, we must understand them correctly. How,
      then, are we to understand the Cadet withdrawal?

Spite?Disagreement in principle over the Ukraine? Of course
      not. It would be ridiculous to suspect the Cadets of loyalty to
      principles, or the bourgeoisie of the ability to do something
      out of spite.

TheCadet withdrawal can only be understood as a calculated
      move. What are their calculations?

Togovern a country which has carried out a major revolution
      and is still in a state of unrest, and to govern it during a
      world-wide imperialist war, you need the initiative and scope of
      a truly revolutionary class—massively courageous,
      historically great, wholeheartedly enthusiastic. Either you
      suppress this class by force, as the Cadets have been preaching
      for some time, since May 6 in fact, or you entrust your self to
      its leadership. Either you are in alliance with imperialist
      capital, then you must take the offensive, you must be an
      obedient servant of capital, you must sell yourself to it, you
      must throw overboard the utopian ideas of abolishing landed
      property without compensation (seeBirzhevkafor Lvov’s
      speeches against Chernov’s programme); or you are against
      imperialist capital, then you must immediately propose precise
      peace terms to all nations, because they have all been exhausted
      by the war, you must dare to raise, and be able to raise, the
      banner of world proletarian revolution against capital, and to
      do so not in words but in deeds, to
      further the revolution with the greatest determination in Russia
      herself.

TheCadets are wily businessmen in trade, in finance, in
      safeguarding capital, as well as in politics. They have
      correctly taken into account the fact that the situation isobjectivelya revolutionary one. They agree to reforms
      and
      enjoy sharing power with the reformists, the Tseretelis and
      Chernovs. But reforms will not help. There isnoway
      out of
      the crisis, the war and economic disruption, through reforms.

Fromtheir class point of view, from the imperialist exploiters’
      point of view, the Cadets have calculated correctly. They seem
      to say: “By withdrawing, we present an ultimatum. We know
      that at present the Tseretelis and Chernovs do not trust the
      truly revolutionary class, that at present they do not want to
      conduct a truly revolutionary policy. Let’s frighten them. To be
      without the Cadets means being without the ’aid’ of world-wide
      Anglo-American capital, means raising the banner of revolution
      against the latteras well.The Tseretelis and Chernovs
      wouldn’t do that, they wouldn’t dare! They will give in to us!

“Ifnot, then even if a revolution against capital starts,
      it will fail and we shall come back.”

Thatis how the Cadets calculate. We repeat: from the point of
      view of the exploiting class, their calculations are correct.

Werethe Tseretelis and Chernovs to take the point of view of
      the exploited class and not that of the vacillating petty
      bourgeoisie, they would reply to the Cadets’ correct
      calculations by correct adherence to the revolutionary
      proletariat’s policy.

[1]OnJuly 2 (15), hearing of the miscarriage of the Juno offensive,
the Cadet Ministers Shingaryov, Manuilov and Shakhovskoi resigned
from the coalition Provisional Government on the pretext that
they disagreed with the government’s stand on the Ukrainian
question. In a declaration to the Ukrainian Central Rada, the
Provisional Government had promised to appoint by mutual
agreement a General Secretariat to administer the Ukraine, whilethe Cadets insisted that the Ukrainian question be settled solely
by the Constituent Assembly.

Thetrue reason for the Cadets’ resignation was their desire
to provoke a government crisis with an eye to bringing pressure
to bear on the “socialist” Ministers and securing their consent to
a Cadet counter-revolutionary programme: the disarming of the
Red Guards, withdrawal of the revolutionary troops from
Petrograd, and prohibition of the Bolshevik Party.